Beliefs Influence Ingroup Favoritism in Children

Claire Rimbaud and Agnès Blaye
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Agnès Blaye: CRPN - Centre de Recherche en Psychologie et Neurosciences - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: Ingroup favoritism has been extensively documented in adults and its underlying mechanisms are debated. In children however, while the existence of the bias is documented, its driving forces remain largely unexplored. This study fills this gap by investigating ingroup favoritism in 7- to 11-year-old children, focusing on intrinsic preferences and guilt aversion. Employing a series of dictator games in which children allocated resources to ingroup or outgroup peers under varying conditions of recipient awareness, we assessed both their allocation behaviors and second-order beliefs about recipients' expectations. Our results reveal a clear ingroup favoritism in allocations. Both correlational and causal analyses suggest that – although intrinsic preferences play a role – ingroup favoritism is significantly influenced by children's beliefs about recipients' expectations and more so as children get older.

Keywords: Guilt aversion; Children; Experiment; Beliefs; Ingroup favoritism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-10-10
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